


A Buoy or a Paper Boat

by igrockspock



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Banter, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:35:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28022511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/igrockspock/pseuds/igrockspock
Summary: Leia doesn't know how to have a relationship without fighting.  It's kind of a problem.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Leia Organa
Comments: 22
Kudos: 34
Collections: Star Wars Rare Pairs 2020





	A Buoy or a Paper Boat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nununununu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nununununu/gifts).



> Title from "Letter to the Playground Bully" by Andrea Gibson: 
> 
> "But on your bad days couldn’t you just say  
> 'hey I’m having a bad day...'  
> And maybe [I] could be a buoy or a paper boat  
> the next time [you] get stuck up the river"

Fighting with Poe was not going according to plan.

She wasn’t honestly sure what the fight was even _about_ anymore, although that had never stopped her in any relationship before, and she didn’t see why it should stop her now. She’d mapped out a perfectly good argument in her mind as her anger simmered toward its righteous peak. She was ready with rejoinders and witty yet cutting remarks, and she’d fully expected Poe to give as good as he got. They’d discharge their anger together, and then there would be sex. That’s how relationships _work_.

Except Poe wasn’t fighting back. He was gathering up his things. The look he gave her was disappointed. He said, not entirely unreasonably, “On your bad days, you couldn’t just say, ‘I’m having a bad day?’”

“I am not _having a bad day_ ,” she snapped. 

She waited for the rejoinder. _Could’ve fooled me, Your Worship._ And then she’d say, _well, of course it’s a bad day. It’s a kriffing war. They’re all bad days!_ Then Poe could tell her -- preferably with lots of shouting -- that he _knew_ it’s a war, he was out there too, and then they could fall into bed. 

Poe didn’t cooperate. He only raised his eyebrows and said, “You’re telling me this has nothing to do with what happened to Blue Squadron on Kafrene? Because I don’t think there’s any way you could’ve known Larry the lunch guy would turn out to be a spy, much less one who could reprogram twelve flight computers during his cigarra break. I mean, the guy was good.”

“I do not want to reminisce about the quality of spies the First Order has been sending us lately, thank you very much.” She retreated to the wall, arms across her chest, and awaited Poe’s response.

He sighed. “I know you don’t. You want to be an asshole.”

“An asshole?” Leia’s anger rose again. “That’s the best you can do?”

Poe put his bag down and walked toward her. He wasn’t that much taller than her, but he _felt_ very tall right now, and she had to fight down a blush when she realized he was looking at her the same way he’d look at an unruly young recruit.

“It’s not meant to be a creative insult, Leia. It’s a factual description of your behavior. I brought you dinner, and you started a fight for no good reason. That is the definition of asshole.”

Leia’s mouth opened and closed, and Poe used the pause to press his advantage. “Out of curiosity,” he said, “is this how your parents handled things?”

“No,” Leia said, her throat dry. They were unified; they were a team. And they did not survive.

“Okay.” Poe nodded, squeezed her shoulder. He looked like he wanted to say something else, but he bit it off and shook his head. “Look, I’m gonna head out,” he said finally, jaw clenched. “Enjoy your dinner.”

“Poe.” Her voice wobbled. “I didn’t want you to _leave_.”

The long-suffering sigh returned. “Well, you sure acted like you did. And I need you to know something, Leia. This is kind of a habit for you, and if this is the only way you can deal with your feelings, it’s not going to work out between us.”

Her nostrils flared, but she pushed the anger away, seeking calm like Luke had taught her. She understood the process. She just didn’t _like_ it. But she liked the idea of Poe leaving even less.

“What do you need me to do differently?” she asked, hoping to the maker it didn’t sound sarcastic.

Poe shrugged. “I already told you. On your bad days, just say, ‘I’m having a bad day.’”

“And then what? _Cry_?” It was a real question.

“Leia Organa, I swear to you, I do not ever need you to cry.” Poe’s signature smirk was back. Maybe she was saving the evening, somehow.

“What are the other options?” she asked, trying to put a little venom back into her voice, mostly because she was ashamed that this was also a real question.

Poe spread his arms wide. “Try me sometime. Find out.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead and collected his bag from the couch again. “Have a good night. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Leia flopped into one of her rickety dining chairs, reaching for the emergency bottle she kept under the sink. What just happened?

 _You lost an argument,_ said a voice in her head. It sounded a lot like her mom.

 _No, you got your ass kicked,_ said another voice. Her father.

At least Vader’s ghost didn’t come around to gloat.

***

“You made me a cupcake.” Poe swung his feet down from his desk, smiling at the plate in Leia’s hands.

“That’s a very generous description,” Leia said, glancing at the malformed cake sitting atop the chipped platter she’d filched from the dining hall. It was lopsided, burnt on the bottom, and the icing was made from emergency glucose packs mixed with crushed up berries. 

She slid the plate across his desk. “I was never good at cooking. Or apologizing.”

Poe beamed. “As it happens, I think baked goods are _excellent_ apologies.”

“Taste it before you decide,” Leia said, sliding into the battered metal chair across from his desk. 

But the cupcake was already gone. He’d swallowed it in two bites. Now he was draining a water bottle, a bit more rapidly than would be ideal. Probably she’d put in too much flour. Or not enough. She had no idea how this sort of thing worked.

“It’s the thought that counts,” he said, returning the empty bottle to his desk with a hollow thud.

“I haven’t done the relationship thing in awhile. The last one wasn’t the paragon of functionality.” She leaned across the desk toward Poe, ignoring the way its metal rim bit into her stomach. “I’ll have you know, I haven’t lost an argument in _years_.”  
Poe leaned across the desk too, so close their foreheads were almost touching. He cocked an eyebrow. “You liked it, didn’t you?”

Leia found, to her surprise, that she did. She expected Poe to close the distance between them, but instead he leaned back, staring at her with an appraising eye. “I like cupcakes,” he said, “But you know the best apology is to quit starting fights.”

For the second time as many days, Poe had gotten the last word. It turned her on so much she almost forgot to be afraid.

***

Three days later, an infantry platoon was ambushed on Sullust. Nobody made it out. Leia walked into Poe’s office and said through gritted teeth, “I’m having a bad day.”

She said it in a way that sounded like a threat, but Poe didn’t blink. He didn’t even take his feet off his desk. He said, “Sparring ring? 19:00?” When she nodded, he added, “Weapon of your choice.”

The lightsaber in the back of her desk drawer hadn’t seen much action in the last fifteen-odd years. She pulled it out and turned it over in her hands. Lately her dreams had felt more like visions, and they said she couldn’t avoid her destiny forever. Or she felt an irrepressible impulse to show Poe the most extreme version of herself. Either way, she clipped it to her belt and marched toward the practice ring at precisely 18:30.

Poe’s lips quirked into a smile when he saw her in the practice ring with the glowing sword. She’d come early, tried a few rounds with the laserbot to warm up. Now her face was sweaty, hair was falling out of her braids, and there were a few scorch marks on her coveralls where the bot had hit, but the lightsaber felt less alien in her hands.

“First of all, you look hot,” Poe said, his eyes trailing slowly up her body. “Secondly, you wouldn’t really cut me in half with that thing, right?”

“Of course not,” Leia said, shaking her head. “I wouldn’t even cut off an arm.”

“Glad to hear it.” Poe’s smile turned into a full-fledged grin, and he rushed toward her, head lowered for a tackle.

Leia shuffled backward a few steps, but there was no place to go unless she wanted to back herself against the wall. Since she didn’t want to actually kill Poe -- or even dismember him slightly -- she could do nothing but hold the lightsaber out of the way and brace for impact.

His head jammed into her solar plexus and she fell backward, losing her grip on the lightsaber completely. It hit the mats with an ominous hiss, filling the room with the smell of melting plastic. She reached out with her mind to turn it off, and Poe took advantage of the distraction to flip her onto her stomach. Now she was pinned beneath him, his hands clamped firmly over her wrists.

“Has anyone ever told you that nothing is more dangerous than a weapon you’re not willing to use?” he murmured into her ear. 

“Cassian Andor,” Leia shot back, though that particular occasion -- much to her sixteen-year-old self’s chagrin -- had not ended with her trapped beneath him.

She really ought to get herself out of this hold and recover a bit of her pride, but instead she pushed her hips up into the thick, hard line of Poe’s cock. If she’d known _this_ would happen if she admitted she was having a bad day, she would’ve done it more often.

***

Alderaan Remembrance Day came two weeks later. It was cold, gloomy, and also a crisis. At least now that the galaxy thought of her as a war-mongering crackpot, she no longer had to smile and cough up yet another eloquent eulogy for her planet in front of the holocams. Not that the media cared that much anymore. Now the anniversary only mattered on years that ended with a zero or a five. This was twenty-seven, an inconvenient and therefore insignificant number.

Reaching for her data pad, Leia wrenched her attention back to the crisis at hand, away from her relentless internal debate about how she should feel and how much mental real estate her long-destroyed home planet deserved.

The fact was, Ansarra Base had been raided last night -- not by the Order, but by the Republic Navy, which did not entirely appreciate a paramilitary operating in its territory. That was by far the worst option, since it came with extensive legal repercussions, not to mention the long list of seized equipment.

Poe popped into her office before she was even halfway finished with her to-do list. He dropped a muffin onto her desk, and it made a much louder thud than a muffin technically should.

He winced. “Sorry, it was all that was left in the chow line. You know that caf isn’t breakfast, right?”

“Do you?” Leia shot back, raising her eyebrows. She bit back a harsher retort. Her anger was surging, but the Navy was the rightful recipient, not Poe.

Poe flexed theatrically, though the flight suit concealed most of his muscles. “Hey, can’t maintain this physique without an appropriate balance of macronutrients, I’ll have you know.”

Leia chuckled in spite of herself, then cut it off abruptly. She _knew_ her parents didn’t want twenty-seven years of endless grief, and still, laughter felt wrong.

Poe looked at her with concern, which was marginally better than the toxic mixture of pity and hero worship most people subjected her to on this particular day.

“What do you need?” he asked simply, flopping into the chair across from her desk.

“Don’t fuss.”

Poe tapped the muffin, which rattled on her metal desk top. “ _This_ is not fussing. Fussing is breakfast in bed. This is basic life support or a chipped tooth. I’m not really sure which.” He leaned forward. “You know you can’t get rid of me without telling me what you need today.”

Leia scrubbed her hands over her eyes. It was only 0900, and she was already exhausted. “Are you asking Leia or General Organa?”

Poe’s voice was soft. “Whoever feels like answering.”

Leia swallowed. She wanted her father’s advice and her mother’s smile, a glass of ruge liqueur at the cantina she wasn’t supposed to visit, and the sunset on Aldera Lake. None of those things were available, so she decided to concentrate on what she could have.

“I want Kaydel at Ansarra yesterday, hounding the Navy for a complete list of whatever they confiscated. A tac team needs to go in a separate vessel to retrieve whatever the Navy missed.” 

She glanced up at Poe and found his head bent over a data pad, stylus tapping away at a list of notes, so she pressed forward, barely pausing for breath. “I want a full survey of the system and three others nearby to identify a location for a new outpost, a complete list of all our personnel who were detained, at least five attorneys who might be willing to defend them, and the names of every Naval officer involved in the raid.”

Poe nodded. “That all?”

Leia shook her head. “No, but it’s a start.”

***

The sun was a distant memory on the horizon when Leia left her office next. Kaydel had come through with a list of confiscated equipment and possible attorneys before lunch, Black Squadron had the survey done by dinner, and Leia had spent the last three hours poring over the list of Naval personnel involved in the raid, trying to figure out who might be a First Order plant.

Poe was sprawled in the collection of battered chairs at the end of the corridor that passed for a lounge, shadows under his eyes and face covered with stubble. Judging from the snoring, he was quite soundly asleep, but his eyes snapped open at the sound of Leia’s footsteps.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. Nobody else was in the corridor, so she surrendered to the temptation to slide her fingers through his thick, dark hair.

“Not fussing,” he said, pulling himself to his feet. “If I were fussing, I would’ve been _in_ your office, harassing you to stop working.”

Leia managed a smile, and Poe grinned back. “Doesn’t look like you chipped your teeth on the muffin.”

“It was perfectly edible, once I soaked it in tea for half an hour.” At the mention of food, Leia’s stomach rumbled embarrassingly loudly.

Poe twined his fingers through hers and tugged her toward the mess hall. “Come on, I heard there’s some slarch left.”

“Slarch?” Leia asked, faintly alarmed.

Poe shrugged. “New catering guy’s still learning Basic. I think he meant starch.”

“Mmm, starch,” Leia murmured.

“Yeah, well, she who wants to eat her greens has to leave her office,” Poe said, tugging her closer. “Or let someone fuss, just a little bit.”

“I’ll keep that in mind for next time,” Leia said. She was at least seventy percent serious. The past few weeks with Poe had taught her it was occasionally nice to allow someone to look out for her -- especially if it meant she could avoid eating slarch for dinner.

They rounded the corner to the mess hall, and Leia caught her breath. Shimmering in the corner, beneath the row of bay windows, was a hologram of Lake Aldera with the mountains rising behind it.

“Look, it’s interactive,” Poe said, dropping her hand to tap one of the holographic trees. It shivered and rustled beneath his touch before flipping around to reveal a picture of her parents on their wedding day.

Leia’s hand hovered uncertainly over the display before she reached down to tap a fish. It skipped over the surface of the lake, jumping in and out of the water, playing a song she hadn’t heard since she was sixteen.

“Did you make this?” she asked, turning toward Poe.

Poe shook his head. “We all did. The whole base. It’s for you, but the rest of us too, to remember what we’re fighting for.” He swallowed and took a step back. “If you want to be alone now, I understand.”

Leia reached out and caught his hand. “Stay,” she said. “Please.”

***

A month later, Leia rose at 0400 after a failed attempt at a good night’s sleep. The Alderaan memorial shimmered in the corner of her room, its lights dimmed for the night. She trailed a finger over it, tripping the fish’s song and a dirty limerick Poe had hidden in one of the palace turrets.

This early in the morning, the base was nearly silent, save for the humm of electronics and the occasional cough from the watchtowers. A few of the night guards waved to her as she walked toward the hangar bay. 

Admiral Verlaine hadn’t been able to give back the X-wings from Ansarra base, of course, but she’d parked them at a loosely guarded spaceport on the edge of the Rim. Leia knew an invitation when she saw one. Now they sat at the edge of the hangar, a straight shot from the open bay doors. Reaching out with her mind, Leia summoned a ladder and climbed inside the closest one.

When she flicked the ignition, the craft came to life with a satisfying hum. The control panel glowed orange and green, and Leia reached toward the navigation controls -- but the board went dark before she could reach them. Frowning, she flicked the switch back and forth, but nothing happened until Poe’s head popped over the ladder.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. His hair was even more rumpled than usual, and his face was creased with sleep.

“I could ask you the same thing,” he said, leaning over to inspect the darkened controls.

“Well, I asked first.”

“All right, _General_. You might recall a certain incident a couple months back? The one when Larry the lunch guy reprogrammed all the flight computers? And then you suggested the flight commander ought to get a security alert if someone who’s not an assigned pilot even touches the control panel of an X-wing? Well, that would be me.” Poe crossed his arms over his chest, glaring down at her like she was an ill-behaved junior officer.

Leia slumped back in her seat and rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “That might have been the day you warned me that I should tell you if I’m having a bad day instead of starting a fight. Well, today is a bad day.”

Poe punched her shoulder. “It’s four a.m. Don’t you think you should give the day a chance?”

Leia licked her lips. “It’s not _a_ bad day, Poe. It’s _the_ bad day.”

Poe frowned. “The Alderaan memorial was a month ago,” he said slowly. Then understanding dawned in his eyes. “This is the day that Ben --”

“Don’t finish, I beg you.”

“Yeah, fair. Still doesn’t explain your unauthorized launch attempt here.” He narrowed his eyes. “Not trying to die in a blaze of glory, are you?”

“If that’s what I wanted, I would’ve been dead a long time ago. The galaxy would be filled with statues in my honor.”

“Alright, not trying to die, won’t say where you’re trying to go. I’m intrigued. Let me in.”

Poe’s feet clattered over the last rungs of the ladder, and Leia realized he wasn’t speaking metaphorically. He intended to get in with her.

“Last I checked, this wasn’t meant for two.”

“Last I checked, two fit if you try real hard.” He smirked. “Just ask Jess and Snap.”

Leia grimaced. “Thank you so much for that image.” 

She scooted forward in the seat, and Poe slid in behind her. It was snug, but they fit. When she leaned back, her head rested against his chest, and her bottom rested against, well, something that helped her understand the appeal of the arrangement. 

His arms framed her waist as he reached for the controls. “I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.” His voice was low in her ear, and he tightened an arm around her waist. “And when we get there, we’re going to _talk_. And don’t try to say no, because I know you think it’s sexy when I call you on your bantha shit.”

Leia slumped back against him and closed her eyes. “Just take me somewhere pretty,” she said. She didn’t even have the energy to care if her voice sounded weak.

***

“Open your eyes,” Poe whispered in Leia’s ear.

Leia startled awake. She hadn’t realized she’d gone to sleep. She certainly hadn’t expected to, not while sharing a cockpit -- and a safety harness -- meant for one.

Golden light streamed into the wind screen, and the lake below gleamed pink and purple in the reflected glory of the sunrise. In the distance, a waterfall poured down from the jungle-covered mountains, churning the water below.

“Where are we?” she murmured. 

“Other side of D’Qar.” Poe reached around her to point at a distant outcropping. “I can set us down right there. Best view on the whole planet.”

Leia shook her head. “Stay up.”

She sank back into Poe, her mind flipping idly through the meditation exercises Luke had taught her so long ago. First, always, anchor yourself in the present -- Poe’s legs splayed on either side of hers, his breath in her ear, his stomach rising and falling against her back, his arms framing her waist and his hands steady on the controls.

Slowly, carefully, she held her feelings up to the light and was surprised with what she found: safety. 

Sometimes she spent so much time hiding from all the things she didn’t want to feel that she didn’t let herself feel the good things either. She’d been learning, or trying anyway, before Ben had -- 

“You ever think of building a dark empire of your own?” Poe asked, interrupting her thoughts. 

Leia shook her head. “No.” Well, that wasn’t completely true. “I had moments, at first. It was why I bought that townhouse in Chandrila, the one that looked out over the square. All I had to do was look outside at all those people, and think about everyone they loved as much as I loved Ben. There is no bad day worth becoming someone else’s worst day.”

They were flying in lazy circles over the lake now, and Poe took a hand off of the controls to loop his fingers through Leia’s.

“I figured it was something like that. Were you planning on jumping into hyperspace in a stolen x-wing and dragging Ben back home with you?”

“Thank you for using his name.” Leia’s lips flickered up in a small smile, not that Poe could see it. “And no. I was going to learn how to fly an X-wing.”

“You wanna fly an X-wing?” Poe repeated incredulously. “Your personal transport ship not good enough anymore? Sick of that hot young pilot who flies you everywhere you want to go? Not that I’m jealous.”

“Lieutenant Rigel is quite devoted to his boyfriend,” Leia said crisply. 

“Hey, I told you, I’m not jealous.” Poe’s breath tickled her ear. “But seriously, what do you want with a starfighter?”

“I want to know I could fly it, if I needed to. If the Resistance needed me to.” She licked her lips. “Today, of all days, _I_ need to know I can do everything possible to win this fight.”

Poe rested his chin against the top of her head. “Okay,” he said.

“Okay?”

She felt him shrug behind her. “Okay. I’ll teach you.”

Leia frowned. “No argument?”

“Well, as long as you know that going up, by yourself, in an unfamiliar spacecraft without telling anyone is the most irresponsible -- and least effective -- way to learn to fly a starfighter, no argument.” He pulled her tighter against him and murmured into her ear. “You know you can’t argue with that one. Remember how sexy it is when I call you on your bantha shit?”

Leia felt her lips twitch up in a rueful grin. “Alright, no argument on either count. And no more solo flying expeditions.”

“Great. Hold out your hands. You’ve got the throttle, and I keep the pitch and the roll pedals for now.”

“Thank you,” Leia said softly.

Poe wrapped his arms around her waist as she took the throttle from his hands. “For what?”

She tilted her face up so she could look at him. “For giving me one place where I never have to fight.”


End file.
